It’s rare for someone to be labelled “the most arch-evil person who ever existed”, but when the offences involve luring young boys into a van, overpowering and restraining them with wires, cords, and handcuffs, then beating, raping, sodomising and torturing them with pliers, knives, wire coat hangers, and ligatures, before ultimately strangling or bludgeoning the victims to death and abandoning their bodies near freeways – it’s easy to understand why.

The depraved individual in question had an IQ of 121 and was a decorated war veteran, having received the Good Conduct Medal for his active five-month deployment in the Vietnam War.

He was also somebody with an extensive history of sexually assaulting and raping young boys, well before he was ever formally convicted of any crime.

Serial killer William Bonin was initially sentenced in June 1969 to the Atascadero State Hospital as a sex offender with a mental disorder who was deemed amenable to treatment.

Throughout his period at the state hospital, he exhibited characteristics of antisocial personality disorder, sexual sadism disorder, and manic depression, and was categorised as an extreme sociopath who was highly likely to reoffend during episodes of psychotic breakdown.

By 1971, Bonin was moved to the California Medical Facility following being deemed ‘unsuitable for further treatment’ due to repeated sexual involvement with fellow inmates (two of whom had learning disabilities), reports the Mirror US.

Astonishingly, he was freed from prison in June 1974, after medical professionals determined he was “no longer a danger to the health and safety of others”.

In December 1975, he was once more sentenced to serve one to 15 years at the California Men’s Facility in San Luis Obispo, having pleaded guilty to charges of rape and forcible oral copulation of a minor and attempted abduction.

In 1978, he was released yet again with eighteen months’ supervised probation, having demonstrated considerable progress in individual therapy sessions, completing maths courses, and training as a machinist.

Bonin’s murderous campaign of terror commenced in 1979 in Southern California and persisted for a year whilst he remained unidentified, until 1980, when he was arrested.

During this period, he murdered at least 21 young boys by his own confession, though the figure was likely nearer to 36. He was formally convicted of 14 murders.

The depraved killer’s victims were predominantly young male schoolboys, hitchhikers or prostitutes aged between 12 to 19, mainly Latino or Caucasian with a slender build, long hair and pale skin.

In a calculated move to deceive the authorities, Bonin and his accomplices – of whom he had at least four, likely aged between 17 and 21 – discarded their victims’ bodies in distant counties from where they were initially abducted, typically by the side of a motorway.

This chilling strategy earned him the terrifying nickname ‘Freeway Killer’.

The serial rapist and murderer would habitually patrol motorways on Fridays and Saturdays with the aim of picking up young boys, and in at least 12 of the murders, he was aided by one or more of his accomplices.

Among Bonin’s most horrific crimes was the murder of 17 year old Marcus Grabs, a German student travelling across the US. He was sodomised, beaten and stabbed 77 times by Bonin and his accomplice Vernon Robert Butts.

His naked body was discarded by a road in Malibu, where it was discovered the following day with an ignition wire tied around one of his ankles and an orange nylon cord wrapped around his head.

Another victim, 15 year old Donald Hyden, had been stabbed, sexually assaulted and strangled, with evidence suggesting attempts to slash his throat and castrate him.

15 year old Charles Miranda was another victim savagely abused by Bonin and his other accomplice Gregory Matthew Miley.

Charles was horrifically murdered by his own shirt, with the duo using a jack handle to twist the fabric until the young lad was dead, his body later discarded in an alley in downtown LA. His post-mortem examination revealed a blunt object had been forced into his rear.

Another young man who endured a brutally painful death at the hands of Bonin and Butts was 19 year old Darin Lee Kendrick.

Tricked into his Ford van under the guise of selling drugs, Darin had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a ligature, but the horror didn’t end there. He was seemingly also made to swallow chloral hydrate which resulted in corrosive chemical burns on his chin, chest, stomach, and mouth.

He was also pierced by an ice pick through his right ear, inflicting a fatal injury to his upper cervical spinal cord.

Bonin was put to death by lethal injection on February 23, 1996, in California’s San Quentin State Prison, making him the first individual in the state to be executed by that method.

On his final day, the deranged serial killer spent his time visiting with friends, watching Jeopardy, and talking to a Catholic chaplain and at some point he moved to the ‘death watch cell’, where he savoured his last meal – three servings of coffee-flavoured ice cream, two large pepperoni and sausage pizzas, and three six-packs of Coca Cola.

His last words were addressed to Warden Arthur Calderon: “I feel the death penalty is not an answer to the problem at hand. I feel it sends the wrong message to the youth of the country.

“Young people act as they see other people acting instead of as people tell them to act. And I would suggest that when a person has a thought of doing anything serious against the law, that before they did, that they should go to a quiet place and think about it seriously.”

His execution commenced at 12:09am and by 12:13am Bonin was pronounced dead.

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